So some people say that within the first 90 seconds,
a hiring manager knows whether or not
they're going to hire you.
Is this true?
In my experience, it's proven to be true for the most part.
Why should I hire you?
Five words immense pressure.
What answer are hiring managers looking for when
they ask this question?
They're looking for a combination
of experience, hard skills, and soft skills, personality fit.
They're looking for what you will bring to their team,
and what you will take in return as well,
and how you're going to be complementary to the rest
of their organization.
Absolutely.
And I'm going to go a little bit into your resume
here because it's incredible.
Amazon Music, Warner Brothers, Capitol Records, EMI, AWOL.
You've worked for just some of the top names in the music
industry for almost 20 years.
That's a long time.
So you've hired a lot of talented people.
And I want to ask you from your experience, what is it that you
look for in an interview?
I look for a variety of things.
I want to hire people that are complementary to the existing
team.
I don't want an army of robots that are all
performing the same function.
So I'm looking for complementary skill
sets, and complementary experiences, and backgrounds,
and personalities really.
Obviously that is in addition to the ability
to do the job at a basic level.
But I really look for people that
are going to bring me more to the team in a holistic view.
And you mentioned hard skills a little bit earlier.
And our first question, so I want
to ask you how much emphasis do you
put on soft skills versus hard skills
when someone's in an interview?
What are you looking for?
I think it depends a little bit on the level of the position.
I think hard skills are you acquire them over time.
So my expectation for a junior level candidate
is not that they're going to come with a very
long resume of hard skills.
I look for that passion.
I look for that personality that I
believe is going to add value to the organization.
As you graduate in your career path,
obviously, the positions get a little more complicated,
and the demand is higher for a broader set of hard skills.
So it's a sliding scale.
You've conducted just a lot of interviews.
You've seen a lot.
So I'd like to ask you, what are three lessons that you've
learned along the way that maybe you
wish your 25-year-old self would have known?
Don't be afraid of what you don't know.
Going into a new job, I think it's
easy to be overwhelmed by the new environment
the new experience and be very cautious about your approach
to that conversation, that interview.
But be up front about the things you don't know.
But couple that with the passion to want to learn the things you
don't know.
So I think that's really important.
Be on time.
But not for the sort of basic reason of being on time.
Punctuality shows you how you feel
about other people in the organization, and the respect
that you bring to the table.
It shows you how you're going to behave
as part of that organization.
And then also understand that you're
dealing with individuals.
Not everyone's going to have the same background, personality,
experience that you've had.
You can't paint people with the same brush.
So really understanding that you have
to treat people as individuals, and not a monolith.
So some people say that within the first 90 seconds,
a hiring manager knows whether or not
they're going to hire you.
Is this true?
In my experience, it's proven to be true for the most part.
So you've got to make that 90 seconds strong?
Well, it's a function of--
again, it goes back to, do I want to work with this person?
I think you can kind of quickly tell
whether you're going to have a rapport,
and whether you're going to want to be in the same office
space with them for the next foreseeable future.
So that's the soft skill part of the conversation, right?
Not coming in to hot into an interview, and making sure
you read the room first before you start applying pressure
in the interview.
If you're looking for a new job, and you
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Have you just ever been completely
surprised in an interview, where maybe someone comes
in with the perfect resume, perfectly qualified
for the job, but maybe in the interview,
it's just not working out, or the opposite,
where someone comes in, with maybe not so many skills,
but they convince you otherwise.
Has it ever happened?
I absolutely have had that experience.
And it was a couple of individuals, maybe
more than a couple over the years, who had
incredible resumes on paper.
It came in into the interview, and wouldn't stop talking.
Basically, they were telling me everything
about the job, what they were going to do,
what was their experience, like it just was like a one sided
conversation, which didn't open up
any room for an actual dialogue.
And for me to go deeper into any particular area.
So that overconfidence can be a killer sometimes.
Did you ever see it on the other side,
where maybe you looked air decided to give somebody
a chance they don't have a lot of experience,
but you were surprised during the interview?
Yeah, absolutely.
So it's possible to prove yourself in an interview?
It really is.
Yeah, it really is.
Once you have an opportunity to go a little bit deeper
into people's personalities, and their experiences, again,
if you find those right moments of this
is someone that could be really complimentary to my team
because they bring this point of view, or this background.
You're not going to get that in the first 90 seconds,
or you're going to have to go a little bit deeper than that.
So with the pandemic happening, there's
just been an influx of virtual interviews happening.
And this is something that seems like it's
going to be continuing for the foreseeable future.
So my question for you is, what are some two ways that this
is good for job applicants, and just maybe what
are two things that maybe might not be so good?
Yeah, absolutely.
It definitely feels like it will continue.
I think this is the new normal.
I believe it helps applicants to cast a wider net.
I think it allows people to look at opportunities,
which they may previously not had a chance to look at.
I think it gives applicants the opportunity
to work from different locations,
and maintain a healthy work life balance, and in some ways,
improve the quality of life.
Those are all great things.
You need to have that in a healthy professional
environment.
The downsides are that it's difficult to build rapport
through a computer screen.
I think it's difficult to understand personalities,
and people's true behavior patterns from a very quick
virtual interview.
And then there's a downside for applicants
because they don't really know what
they're walking into quite literally, physically.
It's nice to know what the office looks like,
where your desk is, what's down the hallway,
and you have an understanding of what your environment is
going to be.
What are some other ways that you
can prove yourself as the best candidate
in a virtual interview?
Follow the conversation.
Don't trail off, and go down rabbit holes.
I think the one benefit I suppose of virtual interviews
is they can be efficient.
Use your time wisely, and have a mastery
of your own experiences, and be able to articulate that
effectively.
Being prepared, ultimately.
Being prepared.
Yeah.
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail
is what my dad always told me.
I think that sounds about right.
Thanks, Dad.
Yeah.
And how important is it to follow up with hiring managers
after you're done with an interview?
And what is the best way that someone could do that?
Honestly critical.
Absolutely critical.
The smallest signal, and one of the most important things
that you can do.
Email I think is probably the most efficient and most
professional way to do it.
If you already have an established rapport
with the hiring manager, where you guys are
on text or some chat communication,
that's fine, too.
But I think sending a quick email the same day saying,
thank you, appreciate your time, and I'm
excited about the opportunity.
Like as simple as that, it's the right thing to do.
And at the end of just about every interview,
there always comes that question,
do you have any questions for me?
And who?
How do you answer that?
And is there a good way to answer that?
What is your advice on that?
I remember being in a position of having to ask that question.
And I always wanted to know what the hiring managers
vision was for the team, and for the department,
and for the company.
Because if the hiring manager can't articulate that,
then I'm not sure if I want to be part of that team.
It feels like I would be walking into something
that's unsure and unsecure.
So I think that's a really fair question to ask.
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Thanks for watching.
This is always the hardest part.
The thumbnail.
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